Bill Watras

Bill joined Hanover in 2026 to help expand the firm’s presence in supporting investor-backed companies in hiring executive-level talent across the private equity and venture capital space. Bill brings a decade of experience in executive search, having focused exclusively on supporting private equity-backed businesses in hiring C-suite to Director-level talent for the last 6 years. Bill focuses on key functional areas supporting CFO & Heads of Finance hires and their respective team build-outs, as well as CMO and Heads of Growth hires and their respective team build-outs. Additionally, Bill’s focus has generally been geared towards focusing on middle market & lower-mid market portfolio companies executive hiring in the consumer, B2B services, manufacturing, tech-enabled services, and CPG industries.

What do you enjoy about Executive Search?

Getting to meet new people every day and immerse myself in new companies, executive teams, and hiring managers. It’s incredible to be fully immersed and at the forefront with companies innovating and growing across various sectors of the economy.

How have you seen the Executive Search industry change?

The landscape has become incredibly competitive for top talent. Almost every search I have worked on or contributed to in the last 6 years has been a competitive bidding situation among my client, their portfolio company, and the candidate they seek to hire.